Scratch Sunshine reminds me of distraction. I don’t like the sunshine anymore, because it reminds me of a time that other people look back on with fondness. Childhood is hardly something to mourn, it is the unconscious, unblinking, and greedy existence we all outgrow at some point. This is a bitter stance, by many standards, I know. I just can’t help it. I have prefered the soft coronas of artificial light for some time now, appreciating it more than I think most people do. To me, electric lights represent borrowed time, time humans weren’t meant to have. This was the time we were supposed to retire for the evening, waking at dawn to work until sundown. Modern man lived all all forms of borrowed time, extending his workday, his lifetime, his helth, his hairline, pushing back his retirement and planning for the future. Perhaps then, I am some sort of throw back, to the days when people were happy for today, and were really more afraid of tomorrow. Then again, I define my existance by borrowed time, hoping to make up for my childhood, when I never thought life was anything but certain. My white blood cell count was low again. Being bombarded by radiation all day was getting borring, and sleeping all day was even worse. Reruns of the Price is Right. Heck of a car she just won there, wonder if she still drives it. Bob Barker’s hair amazes me. It is something else, it is neon, it is hallucinigenic, it is laser Pink Floyd at the planetarium. I’m done with this radiation stuff, the chemo too. I’m supposed to be getting better, but all I’m doing is getting worse. Radiation was supposed to kill the cancer, now they don’t even think it’s cancer. I’ve been told my free radicals are eating me alive, like I’m aging at some super rate, that my body isn’t aging, but breaking down. Just what I need, a mystery disease and nothing to show for it. I swear the last two months have been experimental, like they’re trying to give my a tumor so the free radicals will have some competition. I’ve complained so much to the doctors, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were planning on baking my head. I’m not the first one to go through this, so I’ve been told. Most people who age quickly have Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, and are mostly children. I on the other hand, found out about it in my mid twenties. Really puts a spin on things, to know you’re going to die a shriveled up corpse somewhere without completing anything in your life. Worse knowing that you won’t get a senior citizen’s discount. I left the hospital, shaking, deprived of vitality and burdoned with worry. No one can tell me how long I have, no one. These doctors, with their fancy education and years of experience, they can’t tell me if it’s years or weeks I have left. That creates some resentment and anxiety on my part, but I can handle it. I mean, I’m going to die, right? My apartment is strategically decorated with things I thought were important. I had what people would call, an organized living space, which was very much against my instincts. But I had to keep up appearances, for visitors and so on. Being respectable is a full time job. Speaking of which, I quit my job, that day. Years of nest eggs and future college fund savings, coupled with an uneventful social life, left me with a decent amount of capital to throw away. I’m sure there’s nothing that economists love more than those guys who send all their money on cars and women before they die. They didn’t seem like bad ideas, but with no certainty of living even a year from now, can’t exactly enjoy the open road. The radiation took so much out of me, I’d sooner fall asleep on a woman than sleep with her. Everything was very humorous and cynical at that point. Dying was more like the inconvient consequence of moron doctors who couldn’t help me, what a drag. Thinking about money was what was bringing it all into focus. I had a portfolio and savings and bank accounts and… all sorts of things I had planned. When I started out in the business world I did it with my future in mind, kids and wife and low interest loans. I guess you could say I was selfless, or selfish, depending on your point of view. Like I said, being respectable is a full time job. Watching TV made me sick. Being hospitalized had taken me away from new seasons and episodes of new shows with new, bad plots. No Bob Barker and his amazing non stick teflon hair doo. Courtnie came over, my sister. She was all tears and hugs, unable to complete a full sentence without sniffling. I couldn’t have been any closer, I was so far removed from my own mortality. I had work tomorrow, I had leftover chinese in the fridge, I had to do laundry tomorrow. Yet, here was Courtnie, sobbing into my shoulder like she was the one dying, and I stood there, acting like I wasn’t. Mom was angry at first, a really strange reaction if you ask me. Everyone had known I was being zapped for weeks now, but there was his horrible emotional outpouring. Mom was mad that I had given up, that I had consigned myself to dying. Maybe it was being her only boy, or how dad died hacking his lungs up in a hospital bed that smelled worse than he did. I couldn’t say, but that hit me harder than all the tears and hugs of all my family. Eventually mom caved in, joined the crowd and jumped on the bandwagon. Appologies all around, that’s right tell me you’re sorry. I’ve never liked people appologizing for other people’s misery. Thing is, I’m not that miserable yet. Pete, Courtnie’s husband is sort of shuffling around, his usual lurking. I never liked him because he was a stalker, or it seemed like that. He really did stalk my sister before they started going out. It may have been romantic to some people, but I lived in the same house growing up. I didn’t need some gaunt stranger knocking at the door all the time. He ddi the man thing and shock my hand. He slapped me on the arm and told me things would suck without me. Wow Pete, that’s some charismatic stuff right there, but it helps. This is the best arangement I could have hoped for. Courtnie and mom bring over food, help with my housekeeping and try to cheer me up. I’ve been absorbing Bob Barker Hendricks hair for the last two days, man there’s a lot of glitter on that set. Mom wants to take me to Europe, to see Belarus. As much as I like the idea of seeing the homeland, I don’t really want to. Some people want to take in the whole world, travel, read books and see artwork when they know they’re dying. They want to see and experience everything, to which I can’t relate, because nothing excites me anymore. I’ve been oversees and seen the famous sites, they just don’t thrill me like the giant wheel on the Price is Right. Courtnie askes what I would like to do with the time I have left. This is a tough question, because the phrase “time you have left” never needed an answer. Honselty, I hoped to die in my sleep last night and get it all over with. I have no idea what I want to do, and I look at my hand, which looks like it has been left in a snowbank all night. I’m already aging badly. I’ve made it a habit to watch the Price is Right everyday. It is just so outrageous and Bob Barker is the perfect mix of happy and scolding. I wrote down an idea I had for a game show that I think would be good. It wasn’t really so complex that it needed a written explanation, but I didn’t know if a producer would want the idea after I’m gone. Mom came over and made me lunch, I sat and thought about whether or not anyone would recognize me in a little while. I suppose it doesn’t matter, the world moves on with or without you. I once had a really great idea of a redisgn of the common bottlecap. You know, the metal ones on beer bottles. It had soft edges that fit snug on the top, but could be popped off with your thumb. You could also put the cap back on, I thought it was great. Unfortunatly I was in the wrong line of work, book publishing. Thought I’d finally put it to paper in case I wanted Courtnie to have some patent money after I die. It really got me to thinking about what I actually might be able to do with the little bit of time I had left. Since there was no telling how long I had, it really was foolish to waste away everydy. Maybe I could accelerate ten years of dreaming into a single year, maybe not alone. My computer was just for show, most of the time. It was some choppy 486 from years and years ago, but the appearance of the stylized VGA monitor and tower made it look more modern than it was. I used it for word processing every so often, and now it was getting the work out of it’s life. I found the majority of my time typing on the keys, jotting down ideas and writing stories. I couldn’t tell how much I put out, and I never really looked back on them, never proofread or revised. Whatever came out, came out. Courtnie made dinner and brought a box of 3 ½s. I scratched my plate with my fork and noticed a slight engraving on the enamle of the dish. Courtnie looked at me like I was out of my mind, digging into my own flatware with a fork. The sound was terrible, and she winced as I drew lines across the black plate. I smiled at her, and continued to eat, clearing away to food if only to make more room for drawing. My fingernails fell out on three fingers. It wasn’t painful like I thought I would be, like bamboo shunts underneath. It was more like leprecy. I dropped them down my bathroom sink and lay in my shower of over an hour. If I was wealthy enough, I would put in three of four water heaters so I could take a hot shower for as long as I wanted. I could conduct business or take naps lying in my bath tub with the shower running, propping my head up on my hands. The hot water made me really tired, as tired as I had fealt when I was being blasted by radiation and posioned by chemo. I could barely wrap my towel around me, and fumbling into my room, I pressed play on my cd player. I couldn’t get into the bed, mom tucked the sheets under the matress like I was still five. I lay under the bedspread, still half soaked and shivering. I couldn’t hear the cd playing. Maybe I was shivering too much and pressed the button too many times, pausing it, or maybe the vlume was too low. I couldn’t tell, and I wouldn’t find out. I basically had a controlled cash and burn today, and it genuinely scared me. I was noticing some sutble changes in things more than just my lack of energy and thinning hair. Meals I once enjoyed, and made a rutine of consuming, were now either too much or too little. The tastes were not what I remembered, and I found myself more and more resembling my late grandparents, eating food that I knew my mother didn’t like to cook. Everything was watered down, overcooked and lacked flavor, but unfortunately, that’s how I wanted it. It really depressed me, and later that night I tried to drink myself to sleep, but forcing myself to lift the shot glass and swallow the burning liquid was such a production, I quit after only two. It was the weekend, and no magic hair doo to cheer me up. My sluggishness took a long time to kick off, and I was so reluctant to sleep after I had spent all day trying to raise my energy levels. I know I was becoming short tempered with Courtnie, demanding to know if she wanted me to die bored and depressed. All she did was forget to bring over more 3 1/2s. I had been running through the things very quickly, and now there were stacks of them full of writing and crude bitmap drawings. I hadn’t thought of moving any of the files on my meek hard drive onto disks, and I was frustrated at not being able to save my progress. Courtnie was never interested in me, not when were younger. But now I was fascinating, more mysterious and distrurbed. Suddenly she and mom wanted to know about my writing and my drawing. I couldn’t tell you how insulting it was, after years of ideas and writing going unnoticed. My response was that I didn’t want to forget anything, in case things got worse. This was true, and the reality of lossing my mental capabilities was as depressing as having to wait two days to see what fabulous prizes the audience could win on Monday. Courtnie suggested that I move in with mom. I rolled my eyes. There was something so distressing about the idea of moving in with a 60 something woman and be the one dying. At least here, in my own apartment (though mom now paid the rent) I could decay with some dignity. I spoke my mind on the subject, and she changed it over to living with her. I told her Pete wouldn’t appreciate having a corpse complaining around his house all the time. She wouldn’t budge, so I told her I found Pete sorta creepy and I don’t want to live in the same house as him. Since everyone is being so nice to me, I can afford to tell them what I think of their shady husbands. It was unfair, though. Making mom and Courtnie make the trip from the suburbs everyday to feed and keep me company was a lot to ask. In my deteriorating condition I might require more care, and if I become so old that I fall and bust a hip, then what? I was such a burdon, I must have seemed like a cranky child to them. Bob Barker and his skinny mic. Sunday was bearable with the prospect of Mr. Barker’s magical mystery hair. That voice of his is like the disapproving father you never had. He gets you all excited, but he resents your every move. Sunday was a fog anyway. I spent most of the day sulking and doodling. Monday I decided I wasn’t going to be a child anymore. In fact, this whole situation made me vert resentful of my childhood. It wasn’t that mom and dad ignored me or I was beaten up or anything, it was me. Children never appreciate life. People say the opposite, that only children appreciate life. But I think because they are, for the most part, taken care of, they can’t appreciate it. I mean look at me. I wake up everyday wondering how much closer to the threashold of death I am. All children fear is growing up, and not getting their way. After you grow up you have to work in order to survive, you experience stress, have heart attacks and bear the cost of other human beings. I think that puts things in perspective. Once you have the control over your own existance, live or die by your own actions, then you get it. The world of comfort most parents try to create is a fabrication, and their children aren’t people, they aren’t even cute. They are greedy, self centered organisms that do not love life, they only live it at their own pace, terrified to be responsible. Sleep wasn’t my friend anymore, and caffiene was becoming my ally in winning the fight against fatigue. I never liked coffee, and the amount of soda I would have needed to drink every day to stay aloft for the 18+ hours I desired would have turned my shit orange and bloated my guts. Within a week I had gone to the gas station down the street and bought some Vivran in the conveingeince store. God, even the crumby cashier, who’s life’s zenith would be spent in a gas station looked better than I did. I coughed and pretended to be really, really sick as I passed people on the sidewalk. A young woman passed by and though she tried to hide it, had the strain on her face of a grimace of disapproval. You know last year I was engaged? Yeah, strange to think that a few months ago, Jane was picking out locations for the reception. I wouldn’t say I was thrilled by the arrangement, or feeling like suddenly I pidgeon holed my life, but then again, I’m pretty pidgeon holed right now. Anyway, when my illness started to peak out Jane walked out. Sounds horrible, her leaving me in a time of need and all, but I wouldn’t blame her. She told me I had become too bitter, too cynical, and overall impossible to be around. That’s a fair assessment, seems to be the popular opinion these days. Maybe it really is hard to comfort someone who doesn’t even embrace their own mortality, and instead is just sulking over how they got cheated. Now, what I got cheated, that is to say, time, is all I can think about. Vivran gives me the shakes, but it helps me stay awake. If I can do that, I can squeeze every last moment of time out, watch every bad infomercial, write every last useless haiku. Good news the other day. Not my good news, but any these days is welcomed. Courtnie came over an announced the big news; she’s pregnant. Trust me, even I can appreciate the value of a growing family, and this will be the first grandchild my mother is going to have. Not only that, it takes some attention away from me for awhile and puts the spotlight on Courtnie. You should see the smile on her face, it’s like helping mom take care of me is a joy. That kind of happiness is not something that can be quietly expressed. Mr. Barker, you are the devil. You give me such hope that one day, I could balance the factors of inflation, taxation and supply shortages, coming up with the magical price you so desire. If only they could here me over all the audience screams, the contestants wouldn’t make those stupid faces, trying to guess the price. I submitted my parent information for that bottle cap idea I had. It will most likely go nowhere, but it’s nice to say I have a patent. Getting one of those things is really hard, and I had to sift through all my sketches, designs and doodles in order to get the proper information to the office. This was the first time I went through all the material I’ve written, and just tying to find something cost me more time than I would have liked. In the end, I think it was worth it. Even if nobody ever finds the other things I’ve invented, written about or drawn, the patent is something you can talk about. I’ve even got the patent number memorized in case God comes along as asks me to justify a miracle, right on the street. I could tell him the patent number, he’d point his finger at me and tell I looked familiar, and that would be that. I’d wake up and be in my twenties again, instead of my slow decay. Mom had a brilliant idea today. I say it was brilliant because it was anything but, and I would never tell her. She decided she would call Jane and ask her to come over, to cheer me up. Courtnie said she heard mom tell Jane on the phone; “It was the decent thing to do.” Of course, this was explained to me as Jane bringing me art supplies. All very sly mom, Jane working at the store makes it so conveignient. She was the artist, not me, and I hate the idea of all of a sudden becoming acknowledged by Jane for anything creative now that I’m sick. When we were together she used to try twisting my arm into doing anything creative; pottery, painting, drawing, whatever. I wasn’t any good, and it was mostly because I had no interest. I had better things to do, but now, when I’m not working and not taking care of myself, why is everything different? She did come over, and it was awkward. The mood was something I didn’t want to be apart of, and I wanted to walk out of the room the entire time. Jane wasn’t crying, wasn’t holding my hand, and wasn’t even angry at me. She was just… aloof. Jane obviously had moved on, while I was still obviously very cynical. It was like we had broken up over an affair years ago and we were having an uncomfortable chance meeting. I could tell she still resented me for driving things apart, but I couldn’t help it. How am I supposed to deal with death? Am I supposed to handle it like that 8 phase bullshit? If Jane couldn’t understand that I was a bit confused as to what’s next, when and how do I get on with my ruined life, maybe she’s wrong, not me. I wanted to hate her, but buried beneath my hat, even indoors, and withering away, it would have meant everything if I hadn’t driven her away, if she still was in love with me. There was no point in coming out of my room today. I just lay in bed and shouted at mom and Courtnie. I can’t even begin to tell you how my discussion with Jane affected me. You know, as silly as it sounds, all of this baby nonsense with Courtnie and losing my hair and becoming generally unattractive never actually set in. But I’m looking at Jane last night and it occurs to me that not only are we not going to get married, but I’m never having kids. Who is going to have kids with me? I am a shell of a human being, and who would want to raise my kids alone, with the possibility of my mystery disease forcing them to burying their son or daughter, instead of the other way around. Who would want to be mom and Jane? My last name is going to die with me. That doesn’t seem like a big deal, since our “line” will live on through my niece or nephew, but it is. I get to thinking about all the generations of my family who toughed it out and preserved my name just so that I could be the biggest let down in history. This is worse than losing the world series for your team, this is being a genetic dead end. Scooby, this weird college kid lives on a different floor. He makes meth in a spare bedroom of his apartment and makes a good, dishonest living. I have nothing to give him, other than things like furniture or alcohol. But, this is a trade that he likes, cheap vodka and so on, which he then sells to other underage college kids in the city. For these sins I commit, I can afford to not sleep for a few days at a time, without the backlash of Vivran. Only problem is the crash. When you come down off a four day binge on meth, your body basically blacks out, and you sleep for an undetermined length of time. This is a good temptation to just… use more meth. I’m not really comfortable with the idea of not waking up after a crash, so I toy with the idea of more meth to keep me up longer, but the time I spend awake is bad enough. You never saw someone so productive. If I was still in the workforce I’d be on top of the world. But instead, I’m on the bottom of the world, stuck in Hell, looking up at the world I took for granted. This is day five of my third binge. You’re not supposed to be up this long, and nature gets pissed off at you. I know I’m tired, so tired I can’t even piss straight, but I can’t just roll over. I’m at a point now where the meth is hurting me too much for me to live much longer. But ever uninterrupted moment of living, every sweet breath of existence is the existence of living outside of fear. That terror of death, to die without your permission, I can’t stand it. The very thought of it is enough to make suicide look good. But I’m not superhuman. Far, far from it, in fact. My eyelids are fluttering like the needles of a seismograph, I need to sleep. I read “The Hollow Men” by Elliot tonight, and it really sums up the experience. Life doesn’t end with a bang, but a whimper. I’m going to go to sleep now. I think it’s Sunday, I don’t know. The days blended together, but there was no The Price Is Right today, which means it’s a weekend. If there’s Bob Barker on TV tomorrow I’m watch him. Yeah, I wonder what the price of refurnishing my apartment would be if I had to do it again. My brother, Clifford Rockwell died March 4th, 2003. Medical examiners determined that he died of general organ failure as a result of an unknown cause. His body was so ravaged by his disease that we donated his liver and pancreas to science, in the hope that some questions could be answered. His organ donation status was denied, as nothing could be used to prolong the life of another human being. After going through his apartment we found stacks of papers and computer disks. In his final months, Clifford worked tirelessly to complete his life’s work. Even now, none of us are close to fathoming the entirety of his legacy. Most of his writing is incoherent, and his drawings little more than scratches, but this is what he left to us. Please remember my brother not as the man he died as, but the man that he was before this tragic turn of events. Please remember him not as a man with a mysterious disease, but a man who persisted in the face of death. When my daughter was born, four months after my brother died, we received a notice in the mail from a juice company in California. The bottle cap used on their bottles was similar to the one Cliff had designed. Ms. Jane Halloway had issued a complaint, and the company tracked down the owner of the patent. Instead of implementing a new cap, the company offered my daughter, the now owner of the patent $200,000 to use the bottle cap. Though Cliff drove himself to an even earlier death with his reckless pursuit of more time on Earth, he had secured prosperity and opportunity for those that lived on. Peter now manages Cliff’s estate, sorting through the thousands of writings and drawings on the weekends. He believes there are more patents and inventions in Cliff’s madness that we will take to the patent office together and file under our daughter’s name. Please remember my brother, the inventor of the soft plastic bottle cap.